![]() The secondary text is the “fine print,” a running commentary on the margins of the main text, where more specific suggestions and more technical points can be made. It reflects the kind of lively metaphor and pithy statements that Spiekermann peppers his talks with, and it’s a great way to draw in the reluctant reader, making what could otherwise be an obscure subject come alive. Ostensibly, the main text is for continuous reading and for the beginning user it approaches the subject in the most informal, colloquial, non-technical way. I’ve always felt that the balance between the book’s main text and its secondary text was a bit too even, both visually and in the content itself, and this is still true in the new edition. Designing InformationĮach page spread makes a particular point, but on two levels: first through the main text and one large, metaphorical image, then through the sidebar text and the small illustrations. Incidentally, one small improvement in the page design of this book is that the page numbers are now at the top of the right-hand page, rather than at the bottom in the first edition, too often there was an illustration where the page number should be, and it was hard to be sure what page you were on. 154-55) about online forms (with another swipe at boxes and rules, just for good luck). 152 of the second) still illustrates the authors’ argument against cluttering up price lists and timetables and the like with excessive boxes and rules, but in the new edition this page spread is followed by a new one (pp. The evocative photograph of a 1940s typing pool (p. 85, Second Edition) of the new, expanded numbering system of Linotype’s updated version, Linotype Univers. ![]() 79) of the numbered styles and weights of Adrian Frutiger’s typeface Univers-the first type family to be designed as a consistent system-but the new edition shows a table (p. (It’s a pattern that Spiekermann has used since his 1987 book “Rhyme & reason: a typographic novel,” although that one had only a single track of text.) This edition is more colorful, since it’s printed on a four-color press, but despite a few full-color photos, the design still uses color sparingly, in duotones and restrained spot colors, to keep the focus on type.įigure 2: Several new page spreads have been added to the new edition, to show changes in type technology.įor instance, the first edition shows a table (p. So it’s a multi-track book, highly visual, easy to browse and rewarding the reader with amusing examples, lively writing, and wonderfully odd photographs. This edition is a little longer than the first, but no bulkier, and it’s structured the same way the first edition was: in two-page spreads, with an illustration on the left-hand page (usually filling the page), the main text running down the inside of the right-hand page, a smaller column of secondary text running down the outside, and examples at the bottom of that page (see figure ). The new edition aims to continue the work of the old, updated for the 2000s. Now, in an updated Second Edition, the familiar bright-blue cover has been turned into a mostly white one, the subtitle has been blown up to the same size as the title (and printed in eye-catching orange), and a small, discreet drawing of a sheep, looking like an enlarged type ornament, has made an appearance. Ten years ago, the first edition of Stop Stealing Sheep (Peachpit Press) appeared, with its small subtitle, “& find out how type works,” as an attempt at a popular guide to using type, for the thousands of people who had fonts on their computers but had no training at all in how to use them. “Anyone who would letterspace lower case would steal sheep.” That’s the quote attributed to Frederic Goudy, the most prolific and well-known American type designer of the 20th century, and it provides the title to this witty guidebook by Erik Spiekermann and E.M. You can find more from John at his website. If you’d like to read more from this series, click here.Įventually, John gathered a selection of these articles into two books, dot-font: Talking About Design and dot-font: Talking About Fonts, which are available free to download here. Barry (the former editor and publisher of the typographic journal U&lc) for CreativePro. ![]() Dot-font was a collection of short articles written by editor and typographer John D.
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